By school year
| Primary year 1 | 80 |
|---|---|
| Primary year 2 | 160 |
| Primary year 3 | 200 |
| Primary year 4 | 202 |
| Primary year 5 | 193 |
| Primary year 6 | 191 |
| Secondary school | 1,110 |
漢字 · kanji
Kanji: the characters that carry the meaning
The characters that came from China. They do not represent sounds but ideas, and that is why the same sign is read in different ways depending on the word it is in.
The 2,136 in common use, with their readings, their school year and their frequency.
What kanji are
A kanji is not a letter: it is a word or part of a word, drawn. 山 is «mountain» and 川 is «river», and they look like what they mean because three thousand years ago that is what people drew. That is why a Japanese sentence can be skimmed: the kanji give the meaning at a glance and the kana around them say what they are doing.
Each one usually has two kinds of reading. The Japanese one (kun) is the word that already existed in the language before the character arrived; the Chinese one (on) is how it sounded in the Chinese of the period when it was imported, and that is why some kanji have three different Chinese readings: they arrived in three waves, centuries apart.
The official list of characters in common use —the jōyō kanji hyō— has 2,136 characters. It is what is learned in Japanese school and what a newspaper takes for granted: you do not need them all to read, but that is where the bar is.
Of the 2,136, just over a thousand are learned in primary school, split by year. The rest belong to secondary school. That split is official, and it is the best guide to where to start.
How they are split
Two ways of ordering them, and both are useful: by the school year in which a Japanese child learns them —which goes from the concrete to the abstract— or by the level of the official exam.
By JLPT level
| N5 | 79 |
|---|---|
| N4 | 166 |
| N3 | 367 |
| N2 | 367 |
| N1 | 985 |
| No level assigned | 172 |
The split by JLPT level is not an official document: the Japan Foundation stopped publishing kanji lists in 2010. This is the reconstruction used by consensus, and other lists differ on the odd character. The ones no list includes are kept apart instead of being given an invented level.
The ones that come up most
Ordered by how often they appear in the Japanese press. They are the first ones you recognise on a sign, and so they pay off most at the start. For each one, its meaning and its two readings.
The readings and the frequency count come from KANJIDIC2, by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.
Kanji in depth
Pieces that repeat
Few kanji are a one-off drawing. Most are assembled from pieces that repeat, and recognising them turns a new character into a combination of known things. The radical usually points to the field of meaning: the three drops on the left are abbreviated water, and they are in 海 (sea), 泳 (swim) and 洗 (wash); 言 has to do with speech, and it is in 話 (speak), 語 (language) and 読 (read); 木 is tree, and two or three together give 林 (grove) and 森 (forest). Learning the most common pieces early makes the kanji that follow cost less.
Another piece gives clues to the sound. Many kanji combine a radical that says what they are about with a component that says how they sound in their Chinese reading: 青 (blue, sei) appears in 晴 (clear skies), 清 (pure), 精 (spirit) and 静 (quiet), and all four have セイ among their readings. It is not a fixed rule, because pronunciation has changed a lot over the centuries, but it is right often enough to guess the reading of a kanji you have never seen, or at least to remember it better.
The kana that goes with the kanji
The kanji writes the root of the word and the hiragana after it, the okurigana, writes what gets conjugated. In 高い (high, expensive) the kanji is the root and い the adjective ending: 高くない, 高かった. In 食べる the kanji is «eat» and べる changes to べます or べた. Okurigana also distinguishes words that share a kanji: 上がる is «to go up» and 上げる, «to raise». And it gives a clue to the reading, because a kanji with okurigana almost always takes the Japanese one: 生きる is read いきる.
Some words will not be split. In 今日 (today), 明日 (tomorrow) or 大人 (adult), the reading belongs to the whole word and not character by character: きょう is not the sum of one reading of 今 and another of 日. They are special readings and have to be learned as words in their own right. There are not many, but they turn up from day one, because they are very frequent words. In Hanasuka's vocabulary they carry a note that flags it: «read as a whole».
Learning them inside words
A lone kanji with five readings is impossible to retain; the same kanji inside five words people actually use, much less so. 生 is read せい in 学生 (student) and 先生 (teacher), しょう in 一生 (a whole lifetime), い in 生きる (to live), う in 生まれる (to be born) and なま in 生ビール (draught beer). Learning the words first and then seeing which reading the kanji takes in each is slower on the first day and much faster over the first month, because each reading stays tied to something that means something.
When they come together, kanji sometimes change sound. The consonant of the second piece can become voiced: 人 (ひと) gives 人々 (ひとびと), and 本 (ほん) is read ぼん in 三本 (さんぼん). And the first one can be shortened with a っ: 学 (がく) and 校 (こう) form 学校 (がっこう). These changes are fairly regular, but not entirely, so the reading of a compound word is confirmed in the word itself. That is why the kanji listing shows each character's readings, and the phrases show how they sound together.
Stroke order
Every kanji is written with a fixed stroke order, and it is not a teacher's whim. The general rules are few: top to bottom and left to right; the horizontal before the vertical that crosses it, as in 十; the centre before the sides when the character is symmetrical, as in 小; and in enclosed ones, the frame first, then what is inside and the bottom line last, as in 国 or 日. There are exceptions, but these rules hold in the vast majority of cases.
Following the order makes handwriting come out well proportioned and legible, and it is what lets you count strokes to look up a kanji in a paper dictionary. It also helps when writing with your finger on a phone, because handwriting keyboards expect strokes similar to the usual ones. In Hanasuka kanji can be traced with your finger or the mouse over the character. That tracing does not score, on purpose: it is there to fix the shape without the pressure of being measured.
How kanji are practised here
All 2,136 are inside, searchable and with their tally. You do not have to do them all: you have to be able to choose which.
Listing with search
Search by meaning, by reading in kana or romaji, by category or by the character itself. Whatever filter you leave on carries over to the quiz, so you can test yourself on just the ones from one school year or the ones you are halfway through.
Tracing and quiz
They are drawn with your finger and practised in rounds as long as you choose, picking the answer or typing it. When typing, the meaning or any of its readings counts: both mean you can read it.
And with the reading on top
In the phrases, furigana puts the reading above the kanji for as long as you need it, and it switches off with one tap when you want to read without help.
Questions about kanji
How many kanji do you need to know?
The official list of characters in common use has 2,136, which is what is learned in Japanese school and what a newspaper takes for granted. With about a thousand you can read quite a lot, and with the three hundred most frequent you already understand a good part of a sign or a menu.
Why does a kanji have several readings?
Because the language existed before the writing. When it imported the Chinese character, Japanese attached its own word to it (the kun reading) and also kept an approximation of the Chinese sound (the on reading). As the characters arrived in several waves over the centuries, some carry as many as three different Chinese readings.
What is the difference between on'yomi and kun'yomi?
The kun'yomi is the native Japanese word and tends to appear when the kanji stands alone or with a hiragana ending. The on'yomi comes from Chinese and tends to appear in compound words of two or more kanji. It is not a rule without exceptions, but it is right most of the time.
Do you have to learn to write them by hand?
To read, you do not need to. To keep them from getting mixed up, it helps a lot: tracing them forces you to notice the parts they are made of, which is exactly what tells them apart. In Hanasuka tracing is there and does not score, precisely so it gets used without pressure.
Where do you start with kanji?
With the ones from the first year of primary school or the most frequent ones, which overlap quite a bit. Starting in dictionary order leads nowhere: what makes them stick is recognising them out in the world, and for that you have to study the ones that come up first.
What is a radical?
It is one of the pieces kanji are built from, and it often gives a clue to the meaning. The three drops on the left of 海 (sea), 泳 (swim) or 洗 (wash) are an abbreviated form of 水, «water». 木 is tree and appears in 林 (grove) and 森 (forest). Kanji dictionaries are ordered by radical and by stroke count.
What is okurigana?
It is the hiragana attached after a kanji to write the part of the word that changes. In 食べる (to eat), the kanji carries the meaning and べる is okurigana; when conjugating, the hiragana changes and the kanji stays: 食べます, 食べた. It helps you know which reading applies, because it almost always goes with the Japanese reading.
How many kanji are learned in Japanese school?
In primary school, just over a thousand, split by year from first to sixth, and the rest of the common-use list is completed in secondary school. That is why a Japanese child spends years reading texts with the reading printed on the kanji they have not reached yet. That official split by year is a good guide for deciding where to start.
Keep going
Furigana: the reading written above the kanji
The small kana above the kanji. The reading aid that does not change what you are reading.
The JLPT levels, from N5 to N1
The official scale explained, with how many kanji and how many units the course covers at each level.
Japanese vocabulary: everyday words, by topic
Everyday words by topic and level, with their reading, their meaning and the notes that head off the typical mistake.
Start with the kanji that come up most
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